Story of my life. My belt is too tight and I'm having problems with my water pump. :-)

Hi Gary. As you outlined, that also is the experience of virtually every other professional technician. People typically don't do things that they don't get paid for, and the whole idea of trying to beat the shop down the street on price means the shop has to cut costs, and that's one of the ways they do it. Not getting paid extra to machine the rotors is still common through-out the industry. Some shops require it as part of every brake repair. Meanwhile the flat rate guide is quite specific, there is a labor fee to do the basic brake repair, one to R&R the rotors, and a third for the actual machining time. It actually adds up to a lot more time than shops actually charge! Measuring run-out, and in the few instances that require the technician to do even more work to correct for it when its discovered create another dilemma that up front adds a little time to every brake repair, (about five minutes). Correcting for it in some cases can add an hour, (or more) to a job that has its price already quoted, and since the shop feels pressure to "price the same as everyone else because its just brakes" and to not do a repair price-wise that the average consumer would not understand, again the technician often does not get directly paid for that repair. Just remember every time someone price shops auto repair, and moves away from a top shop to someone who advertises cheap price, they add fuel to this fire. I can hear a manager saying "well feed you some gravy work to make the time back up" right now. A good friend of mine has a little saying. "Getting old sucks, not getting old REALLY sucks...." Just remember the phrase "Anybody can do brakes", now say it the right way, "Anybody can do brakes incorrectly". Dang, can't believe this, in the process of writing this I just had a phone call from a guy that had a "neighbor that has a shop" who put brakes on his 99 Safari, and now he has no brakes at all that's going to be towed in. The neighbor thinks that this is solved with the factory machine that we put the car on.

Yes I am. http://www.kdkaradio.com/ The link is in the upper RH corner. I'm normally on from 1:10 PM til 1:45 PM during the Car Radio show on saturdays.

I am being told by my supplier latley those weep slots should be left exposed, I dont do that with no problems so far. If a person thinks about it the actual gap with TT T&G material even snuged up is about the same as leaving a strong 1/8'' with face fastining same kinda clog up thing if its not kept clean. I have done an angled project like that,joists on 16'' centers worked just fine. Walking on this project feels strong but,,,,soft 70 % of my business is in ipe so I problely notice that more than some would its also a lot cooler to walk on than ipe on a hot day. J